Cryptic Masks
by ohsoxalive
Summary: The Painted Lady and the Blue Spirit met under a shooting star. [After all, their legend lives on.] [oneshot PLBS & vague ZK]


**Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender.  
Pairing: Painted Lady x Blue Spirit & vague ZukoKatara  
a/n: Took me about three days. I don't like the ending, but I was so tired of typing the same thing for three days, I just decided to post it as it is. Enjoy my vague writing. (This is my favorite pairing EVER.) This is such an overused thing now, I'm afraid I might be killing it. That's what happens when I procrasinate...**

**-**

**-**

**-**

They didn't know her.

To tell the truth, neither did she. The reflection in the mirror could _not _be her. It stared at her, questioning her actions, as the darkness of the night brushed against her bare shoulders. Hypnotized by the blue eyes blinking at her, she silently pursed her lips and held the memories of a broken village near her thumping heart.

Katara dipped her fingers in the red paint that reminded her so much of blood.

Smearing the paint across her face, (_from the bump of her lip, to the defiant curve of her chin)_ she choked on the memories and the air that she breathed. Each stroke (_the sharp crescent of the moon) _stabbed and reawakened the memory of a bitter night.

Long ago, when flames had covered a snowy land, her own people had worn masks of red.

Red as the blood of berries.

**  
.x.**

He hid among the layers of the dark night.

Creeping among the alleys filled with dirty crimes and even dirtier secrets, he felt the light of the moon beating down on his crouched back. The glimmer of his sword matched the burning amber in his eyes.

Much like the black bird flying over head, he raced through the streets.

He was back. He was back.

The Blue Spirit breathed behind his grinning mask.

**  
.x.**

She moved as swiftly as the soft whisper of her untold story, a myth, a wondrous secret.

The Painted Lady was a ribbon in the wind. Speeding through the old village, where a trail of water was often found dripping behind her. The legend was a story of the Fire Nation, often told in the darkness of the night over the crackling of a camp fire.

She healed the sick, using her powers to cure the wounds of broken soldiers and mend the fractured bones (_and hopes)_ of the people of a burning land.

Her story had been revived in one tiny swampy village, then strayed away and began to grow like a weed all through the nation.

But, her work hadn't stopped in that small sick village. That had only been the flame of the fire, a flicker of the fuel for her purpose, and only the beginning of everything.

The night was silent when the Painted Lady returned.

**  
.x.**

The Blue Spirit was in your dreams.

He was appearing in the middle of the night, in the corners of your mind, and in the pit of your nervous fears. Feeble shop owners were hesitant to blink, terrified of when the time when the night would find itself and take over, and then you were so vulnerable to everything.

Stocky, and yet so helpless, the middle aged man stepped outside.

With money _(and a cold, cold, heart)_ hiding deep inside his pockets, the greedy man wasn't willing to share any of his possessions with anybody.

It was then, when he saw the flash of metal, and his back collided with the wall. A hand dove against his throat, both a mixture of strength and heat keeping him from breathing.

The man opened his eyes, only to be greeted by a blue grinning mask.

His pockets felt extremely light.

**  
.x.**

So carefully, under the starry sky, she tiptoed outside the old house.

There was a smile resting on her lips. It was as sweet as the fruit hanging from the trees of the dreary town, but also as sorrowful as the poison leaking from the juices of the mangoes and apples dipping from the branches over her head.

It saddened her to think that this was the fourth (_or perhaps fifth?)_ village she had seen in such a horrible condition.

But there was nothing more beautiful than the face of a child when he awakens to find his little sister is no longer ghastly sick.

And that was all that mattered.

**  
.x.**

The bag fell from his hands, slipping from the spaces between his fingers, and landing softly on the ground.

With shaky hands, he stood quietly, and simply watched the night fly. The aroma of food lingered from the (_stolen_) bag, and the sack of money inside jingled happily. Stepping back, the Blue Spirit glanced over his shoulder and heaved a sigh.

He held his breath under the mask that (_hides his shame, hides his regret, hides his failure) _feels so heavy at that very moment.

Knocking on the cracked door, he turned on his heel to run, leaving the donations on the step of the aching house.

Why does he help?

_Why?_

He supposed it was because when he put on the mask, the other man inside him, the one he thought he had left in Ba Sing Se, would come out and take over him. The overwhelming feeling in his heart when he helped people was better than the hot tears it cried when the only person he cared about would_ not_ talk to him.

At least then, as he glanced back at the small house and the smiling family, he could say he was happy.

It'd be the first time in months he was not lying.

(_Hello, my name is Lee.)_

**  
.x.**

The Painted Lady and the Blue Spirit met under a shooting star.

Her eyes first found him through the veil of her straw hat. Frozen, she stared at the masked man. She had seen him through the wanted posters in most towns, and through the stories she was so fascinated by.

The bag of stolen goods dropped from his hands, landing with a loud _thunk_, and the noise seemed to echo through the icy air. They locked eyes. Her veil fluttered in the wind, as they stood on a tiny hill that isolated them from the entire world.

A breeze carried her soft question like the shooting star over the hill where the two legends stood.

"_Do I know you?"_

She wished she did.

**  
.x.**

They met at the widow's peak of the land.

It was at the crossroads of two lives, a path to separate worlds, all leading to the same hill they met on.

They breathed the same air—the one that whispered ancient names—and they walked on the same solid ground that held their deafening secrets, and they both merged and became a single legend across the voices of the earth.

"We're kind of like secret heroes, don't you think?"

The Blue Spirit curiously looked at the Painted Lady (_the one who is so familiar, and the one he refuses to acknowledge is his enemy) _and nodded his head.

He embraced her words, studied the form of her lips under the veil of her hat, and carved it all into his memory.

For the first time in a while, he smiled under the blue mask.

**  
.x.**

There was something about her.

Something that captivated his heart, that made him twist and turn whenever he saw her near.

Whenever their stories would combine, and he would once again see her under the moon's light, he had to hold his breath. A question lingered in his soul, begging to be let out and revealed. But he never did let it.

Until one night.

The question spilled.

"C_an you heal me, Painted Lady?"_

His voice was as raspy and vague as his mask, but yet so small and tiny like the sound of his footsteps that always caught her by surprise. Turning, her hands twitched by her side as she stared at her new ally speak for the first time.

She didn't need to ask.

And he didn't need to answer (_that his heart ached, and his soul mourned, and he was so broken inside)._

Because the Painted Lady already _knew._

"I can try."

**  
.x.**

"I'm not coming back. I can't."

She was done healing _(his heart)._

"I understand."

He was done stealing _(her heart)._

**  
.x.**

The Painted Lady and the Blue Spirit met again under a sky without a sun.

Only this time, there was nobody to heal, and nobody to steal and give away to, nothing to blend into, and this time there was no mask or paint to hide behind.

Just a waterbender and a firebender fighting side by side, pouring their trust (_nobody knows why but the moon and the stories) _into the sweat and blood they bleed.

After all, the legend still lives on.

Vaguely, the skies blink, and a shooting star is seen.


End file.
